Red Pill and Game

As per Keoni’s previous posts on God, Game & The shape of the “men’s movement” and The Great Unlearning, I think there’s two separate things going on here. Though I also think there will almost inevitably be an impasse.

There’s two separate things that we must consider when we discuss “game.”

1. The Red Pill
2. Game

The Red Pill is about taking the blinders off and being able to see human nature, as opposed to the lies about men and women that are fed to everyone from the media, society, churches, and other people. The Bible is naturally red pill when you read it to understand human nature — see Adam and Eve first and foremost.

Game, on the other hand, I’ve always referred to as the “utilization of red pill knowledge in action.”

As I wrote in to game or not to game, I wrote about the 4 respective positions that most take on what “game” is which are,

• The first crowd believes that “game” is a specific set of codified techniques that were “pioneered” by the PUAs in order to improve your relative attractiveness to a woman’s in order to use other techniques to get a woman into bed.

• The second crowd believes that “game” is a toolbox insomuch that a tool such as a hammer can be used to do constructive things such as building furniture whereas it can also be used as a weapon to bash someone over the head.

• The third crowd believes that “game” is fundamentally about “charisma” or “self improvement” because masculinity is about building a man who is not just respect by women but by other men, children, colleagues in the workplace, etc. It is the ability to weild influence.

• Finally, there is a fourth depiction of game that Leap has been commenting on which is the one I most agree with having studied the Scripture more in depth. This is the depiction of game that it is inherently worldly in nature, and that mascunlity of the positive variety comes from being a masculine man of God as the Scripture define it.

As one of the people who would classify themselves as “anti-game”, my conclusion has always been that knowledge by itself is not sinful as long as the knowledge isn’t gained through actions which may incite or incur sin into your life. For example, in no uncertain terms would I say that watching pornography is OK even if you give me the explanation  that you’re just doing it learn what to do during sex. Fueling your lusts is inevitably going to be sinful.

That’s why both pyramids have knowledge of human nature and lusts of the flesh:

Now, actions are born of intentions, and it is the heart that matters as well as the actions. In terms of game there’s two categories that I would place things in. Things that game says to do, and things that game says not to do.

As I’ve stated in previous posts, what game says not to do is indeed good — e.g. don’t pedestalize women, don’t be nice, don’t be needy, don’t seek validation, etc. — as those are definitely concepts that you can see modeled by many of the great masculine men in the Bible and not modeled when they sin. Whether you have learned them from the Bible, or your father, or a masculine mentor, or game you should thank God for that.

My biggest issue has always been the implementation of game in terms of techniques that may seem innocuous but are, in actuality, spiritually of the flesh such as dread game. Clearly, borrowing techniques born of the dark triad traits as a Christian is just not a good thing to do for you as a man both for your own soul and for hers.

The feminists and white knights actually are correct in their assessment of some of game’s techniques such as dread which do play with the emotions of women. As Christians, we know that it is much easier to sin when we are emotional and not thinking logically, so we know that it is never justified to use any “game technique” that intentionally plays on emotions as a Christian. Why would you throw a temptation in front of your sister in Christ, even if she’s your wife and is not attracted to you?

This is what Chad, Donal, Cane, and everyone else mean in terms of the implementation of game is not of Christ but of the flesh. We see that certain techniques, even born of good intentions, may cause both men, women, husbands, and wives to fall into sin because of the inherent selfish nature of such techniques. Thus, we condemn the “dos” of game, while we might not necessarily condemn the “don’ts” of game.

I can indeed see how this disctinction of “knowledge” vs “implementation” and “dos” vs “don’ts” does indeed seem like a toolbox. However, the divide that you miss when you see things just as a toolbox is that spiritual component of temptation — am I drawing myself and women closer to God or not?

In most cases with the “dos” of game you are not. That’s why the heart matters because you want to see where the heart’s underlying motivation is. If you see that many of the game “dos” are indeed evil inasmuch as the dark triad traits are not of God but of the flesh, then you see why you shouldn’t use them.

Game is not a tool because by the same analogy a tool is not imbued with any spiritual righteousness or evil at all. A tool does not take on the characteristics of its weilder, nor does it influence them. But with game it does as manipulative techniques corrupt totally just as sin does.

If someone could tell me how “dread game” and other emotionally manipulative techniques are not spiritually bankrupt then I would consider seeing game as a toolbox. But indeed I don’t see it.